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Season
| January 31, 2007 Seasiders Douse Vulcans
Laie, HI-The Brigham Young University Hawaii men's basketball team overcame an extremely slow start to defeat UH-Hilo tonight, 86-56, in Pacific West Conference action. The Seasiders, now 15-5 for the season and 7-1 in the PacWest, missed ten of their first 11 shots from the field as the visiting Vulcans opened up a six point lead early on. UH-Hilo still led by four, 24-20, with under five minutes to play in the opening half when the Seasiders exploded with a 20-4 run to take a 40-28 lead into the locker room. Although UH-Hilo cut the lead to as few as five points in the second half, the Seasiders gradually pulled away as the BYU-Hawaii bench outscored the Vulcan reserves 46-14 for the game. Sophomore Wu Tai-hao, who was instrumental in the decisive first-half run, led BYU-Hawaii with 16 points. He shot 6-9 from the field and was a perfect 2-2 from both the three-point line and the charity stripe. Fellow sophomore Trenson Akana led the strong bench play with 13 points and was 5-6 from the field and handed out three assists. Junior Corey Nielson, who, like Akana, came off the bench to provide a spark during the run, tallied nine points and a dished out a game-high four assists to go with a game-high three steals. Freshman Lucas Alves led the Seasiders to a 41-27 rebounding edge be grabbing seven caroms to go with a matching seven points. Eric Boyce hit three three-pointers in the game for nine points and Micah Casey tossed in seven points off the bench in the win. The Seasiders, after the miserable start, finished the game shooting 52.5 percent from the field, including a 65.4 percent rate in the second half. Vince Alvarado and Rashad Bilal led the Vulcans with 12 points apiece. Justin Dobson added 11 points and five rebounds as UH-Hilo fell to 8-12 for the season and 5-3 in the PacWest. The same two teams will face off again tomorrow night at 7:30 pm in Laie. |
